A Year Reflected

This time last year is when it all started unraveling. Mom was hospitalized on Christmas day. We had diagnoses of pneumonia, bronchitis, the flu, and finally "just" a COPD exacerbation. It boiled down to, they didn't know. Then in February - nearly four years to the day - devastating news. She had lung cancer, again. Not a reoccurrence, a new one.

And of course, life happened. And because life happened, so did death.

So, here I sit two days before a new year. A little sad. A lot reflective. Still tasked with trying to get used to my "new normal." I hate that phrase by the way. It's dumb. It does nothing to help. Frankly, hearing it is slightly irritating.

My mother had me for 42 years and 10 months. I had her my whole life. This will be my first full year without her. It's just a weird feeling.

I'll be fine. As much as we all feel we won't make it through the initial grief, we do. Actually, if we're honest, we just get used to it. You don't really get over it. It doesn't just magically get better. It never really goes away. You just get used to it.

Do you remember when you were little and you had a favorite shirt? Then you wore it and wore it and wore it. It kind of smelled funny, maybe even got a little itchy. (Don't lie, you had one. Or lucky socks, a blanket, something.) But you didn't notice because you wore it EVERY day and you got used to it.

I think we wear our grief the exact same way. It might be smelly, itchy, uncomfortable, etc but after a while, you just. get. used. to. it. It still totally sucks, you just don't notice it all the time anymore because you. just. get. used. to. it.

So, I think I'm "there." Sometimes it happens faster than we think. Sometimes we don't even realize that we've gotten used to it. So, on the cusp of this new year, I'm used to her being gone. It doesn't feel good, but at least I feel.

So, 2015, here I come. Memories in my mind, love in my heart, and the realization that God is nowhere near done with me yet.

A Year Divided

Well, here I sit on the morning of December 22nd. Almost Christmas time. Almost. I think I shall be ready for it to be over. Not because I'm overwhelmingly sad at the present time - more so because it's something we're "getting through" this year.

I will always enjoy celebrating the Christ child's birth - regardless of the circumstances - however, I'm struggling to have my heart in the rest of the "stuff." I've witnessed so much loss the last quarter of this year. Between our family and our friends, there have been eight losses since August 7th and as I sit here, I am awaiting the news of another friend being called home.

I know that as I age I will see it with more and more regularity. While I know death is a part of life, and while I know that for believers absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, those things do not stop our heart from feeling the loss of that physical presence.

I simply cannot imagine not being a believer and feeling like there is no hope of seeing them again. I hold so tightly to the promises of God that I will get to see His face plus the faces of my loved ones. Oh how I long for that reunion. What a sweet, sweet time.

Someone reminded me last night that I was the only one left now (in my family of origin). Really? I didn't cry. I didn't get angry. I just nodded in agreement. How could anyone think I wouldn't realize. I know. I know. I'm ready whenever Jesus is ready for me.

But alas, my work here is not done. So many things left to do. I will attempt to do them cheerfully and relish the thought of the most glorious family reunion I could ever imagine.

Right now though, I simply look forward to this Christmas season being over. The timeline for this year has been "before mom died" and "after mom died." I really am looking forward to the new year and a fresh start.

This new year will not be divided - it will simply be moving forward "after." I've finally made it to a place of being okay with that. Over it? No. Still more days of crying ahead? Yes. However, I'm cognizant of the gifts I received in the final years of mother's life. We had made our peace. Forgiveness had been offered and granted. We had precious, silly, funny times. I knew she loved me. She thanked me for taking care of her. God gave her to me for as long as I "needed" her.

I am so thankful that there will never be one more moment of sickness from treatment. She has hair and her teeth - and yes, those things mattered to her. She will never again struggle for one more breath. Never. I witnessed that struggle over and over. It's horrible. She is healed perfect. I can only imagine - literally - the smile on her face at 12:49 am, August 7, 2014 as she RAN (I'm sure she ran) through the gates of heaven and saw her Maker's face and then the faces of her mother, her father, her husband, her children, and aunts and uncles, and the goofiest brother-in-law ever. Oh what a smile she must've had.

And being able to imagine THAT smile ☺ for those reasons is worth so much more than having her here. And I know that some day, my smile will be the same.

Feeling no feelings

Well, we are inching closer and closer to Christmas. I can't slow time. I can't stop it. Christmas will come and go next Thursday just like clockwork. Just that quickly, another first will be completed.

I have a new favorite Christmas song this year. It's called A Different Kind of Christmas. It's by Mark Schultz. You should totally give it a listen. It's fabulous. I'm thankful to have a relationship with Christ that affords me the opportunity to know that I haven't said "goodbye" to my family. I have simply had to say "see you later." There's a huge difference between the two.

But I digress. As we inch closer to Christmas, I find myself in a weird place. A place of no real emotions to feel. It's not that I'm avoiding them or stuffing them. It's just that for the first time in a really long time, I find myself completely void of ANY gut-wrenching, exhausting emotion. Oh how I'm thankful.

Am I "over" my grieving? LOL, no. Simply in a place of grace where I can have a few moments of nothingness. It's a fabulous feeling right now at this very moment. I'll take it.

I know grief will return. It doesn't subside that quickly. It waxes and wanes. With this lull, I wonder if the level of intensity will decrease? We shall see. But right now, in this moment, I will accept the nothingness and cherish it for the gift it is.

Time Marches On

Well, yesterday was December 7th. Just a regular, average, every day kind of Sunday. However, for me, yesterday, December 7th, 2014, marked off four months since mother's been gone. A third of a year. 122 days. 2,928 hours (as of 12:50 am). But hey, who's counting.

Maybe me. Maybe just a little. Maybe every now and then. In that relatively short period of time, we have celebrated seven birthdays (me, two nieces, three great-nieces, and an aunt), the birth of a new child, Labor day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. All of those are big "family" days in our family. All celebrated without "her." All those "firsts."

We still have so many more "firsts" to conquer. Christmas is just on the horizon, then New Year's, then her birthday. Oh my, how time marches on.

This thing called "time" that they talk about healing all wounds. No, I think not. Time cares very little about my wounds. My pain. My grief. If time "cared," it would stop or at least slow down. It would let my emotions catch up before running off into the future like she never existed - never mattered.

But time doesn't stop. It doesn't even slow down. Babies are born. Other people die. People get married. They get divorced. People laugh. They cry. Time just chugs on along.

People try to care. Those closest to you still ask from time to time how you're doing? If you're okay? They genuinely care. It's not even that the others "don't." It's simply not their pain. It's not their burden to carry.

The truth is, while time "HEALS" nothing, it does change things. It changes the intensity of your grief. It allows the raw wound to simply scab over a bit. It allows a bit of perspective.

I will never be "over" any of my losses. That's not possible. To borrow and paraphrase a bit, great love often results in great pain. I have found that the length of time I go without crying is greater. However, the triggers are often weird, crazy stuff that I could never anticipate. I have found that I can talk about her without crying. However, sometimes the funny stuff makes me cry the most. As I spoke to a friend (who also recently joined the deceased mother club), she said something that we all feel at one time or another - "sometimes it feels like she's been gone forever and sometimes it seems like I just got off the phone with her."

Those are the crazy tricks that "time" plays on you. I read this earlier and I like it. I think it gives people permission to grieve AND move on because sometimes the moving on becomes the hard part. So if we acknowledge the change, it might help...

“I don’t think you ever get over the loss in your heart,” Elizabeth Harper Neeld, Ph.D, said. “And that has nothing to do with your spiritual strength or trust, or even with whether you’ve been true to your grieving,” she said.

She goes on to express the heartache she experiences when holiday season arrives, and her son’s presence is missing; yet, she’s obtained a state of calm and acceptance. “If something happens, or we’re somewhere Cliff would have been with us, we’ll say ‘Hi Cliff, wish you could see this…something like that, but it’s not heavy,’” she shared. “We take stock and say: I am changed by our loss, and I have changed my life as a result of my loss. And we are not shriveled permanently like a dry stick because of our loss. We can feel alive again…probably wiser, maybe quieter, certainly full of gratitude and a desire to contribute to what we have been through.”

I think the bolded part is phenomenal. Just my nugget to hold onto when I'm 2,928 hours, 122 days, 4 months, and 1/3 of a year into this load of crap.